Why are we’all in such a rush, anyway? If you need to talk to someone right away, we got video conferencing. If you, in an emergency, really need to move somewhere fast, there’s helicopters. I say we just consign the whole ‘car’ idea to the dustbin of history, and just convert everything over to canals. If some insist on speed, we can consider adding a train system. But the only means of private mechanized transport must be by watercraft! That should be enough.
This would rule from an aesthetic perspective, but I predict you will run into problems with hills.
You vastly underestimate just how many locks I am willing to build!
Just fill them with fast water and it should make it over the hills.